Vertcoin team updates mining algorithm to brick ASIC, hardfork date announced
Vertcoin team has announced that they will be doing a hard fork soon to deal with the ASIC mining machines that have taken over the network. Infact, its blockchain suffered a 51 percent attack, resulting in double spends. And this hard fork is being done to deal with those ASIC machines.
Vertcoin team has introduced Lyra2REV3, an update to existing algorithm. This algorithm change is all about getting rid of ASIC miners that have been dumping VTC in exchanges from past one month. This fork will prevent them from mining using ASICs.
This is an excellent solution until Verthash is out. Verthash is supposed to completely eliminate ASIC machines as it will be a totally new algorithm.
While concrete date for hard fork is not announced, Vertcoin team assures the fork will happen within a month from now.
Will there be new coins?
Nope. As of now, no new coins are announced. There are no lost coins. If you have the coins stored locally, just update your Vertcoin wallet to latest version before the fork and you will be fine. Make sure to dump your private key for safety purpose.
Update 12/29/2018 – the updated wallet version is available on github.
Vertcoin, as many know, is meant to be mined with GPUs that are more easily accessible to users. Vertcoin team believes that ASIC machines centralize the hashrate or flood the renting market with cheap hashrate. Neither of the two provides good security. Also, in case of ASIC mined blockchain, only some people can participate to consensus.
Also, check out how to mine Vertcoin using one-click miner?
In commodity hardware mined chain like Vertcoin, everyone in the world can contribute to consensus using their GPU/CPU. Both Nvidia and AMD graphic cards are supported.
In other news, Vertcoin has also been classified as “not a security”. It says,
“Based on our review of Howey and derivative case law, and the SEC guidance to date on the subject of cryptpcurrencies, and based on information found on the Vertcoin website, our position is that VTC are not securities under U.S. law.”
